Advance columnist: What Staten Island needs is a good dress code

View full sizeStaten Island Advance photoFlip-flops: Perfect for the beach or hanging out. Inappropriate for any job interview.

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- What’s happened to the people on Staten Island?” the voice on the other end of the phone wanted to know. “When did the people here forget how to dress?”

The caller was a longtime Island businessman, frustrated by his recent experience trying to hire help for his thriving food emporium. It seems he’d recently placed an ad in the paper advertising for experienced counter help.

The applicants left a lot to be desired ... at least sartorially.

“A kid came in wearing a knit hat, short pants and sandals,” he told me. “I said to him, ‘the job was advertised paying between $35,000 and $48,000. Would you dress like that if you were going to interview at a bank?’

“You know what he said? ‘Well, I figured it was just a deli job.’” Even if it was “just a deli job,” the businessman said, “Shouldn’t you dress appropriately? At least wear shoes?”

He went on to tell me about another applicant who came into his store sporting flip-flops, and a woman who arrived for her interview wearing jeans and sandals. “And not just jeans,” he was quick to point out. “They were the ones with the holes in them.”

You’d think with the number of people out of work and the paucity of decent job offerings, anyone hoping to land a job today would do everything in his or her power to present themselves in the best light.

Not according to this longtime Staten Islander.

“One guy came in in a sweatsuit and without a resume,” he said. “He told me he had kids in school, his wife left him and he needed work. So, come in like you’re looking for a job!” he said incredulously, adding, “We’ve lost it on Staten Island. It’s embarrassing.”

I had to agree with him. Just the day before I’d marveled at the wonders of gravity as I watched a skinny, cap-wearing teen crossing the street, jeans riding so low on his blue boxer-shorted hips I held my breath, sure he was going to step out of them at any moment.

Teen-age couture aside, sweatsuits and baggy athletic shorts seem to be the go-to, all-occasion fashion choice for people in our fair borough nowadays. There’s also way too much spandex being stretched by way too many people whose body type exceeds its powers of expansion, while cleavage is popping up — and out — all over, from the car wash to the confessional.

I guess my age is showing, but I miss the days when you dressed one way at home and presented yourself another way in public, so I really related to the businessman when he said, “I’m an old school guy. When we went to church, my mother would make sure our clothes were pressed and our hair was combed.

“Today you go to church,” he continued, “You go up to communion and the guy behind you looks like he’s gonna wash your car.”

True. I remember when wearing a sleeveless blouse in church was a no-no. Now, whole families attend wearing shorts, so they can zip out and head to the Shore right after communion.

Still meandering down memory lane, my caller reminded me that when he was in school, boys were required to wear a white shirt and red tie to assembly. “Now you’re lucky if they come wearing a shirt,” he mused.

That reminded me of a story a high school teacher related several years back. A kid showed up in her class wearing overalls with nothing on under them, except for the requisite boxer shorts peeking out of both sides. She sent him to the principal’s office, his mother was called and an appointment was made for her to come in and discuss his attire, or lack thereof.

When my friend walked into the principal’s office on the appointed day, she found the mother waiting, decked out in a body-hugging T-shirt emblazoned with the words “Italian B---h.” (Her shirt filled in the blanks.) It’s not difficult to figure out where the kid got his fashion sense or his idea of what is appropriate to wear when.

I shared that story with the businessman and we commiserated about how it seemed there no longer was such a thing as a dress code, observed that the parents are as bad as the kids and concluded that Staten Island is a lost cause.

So, I was truly heartened when I called him about another matter the other day and he said excitedly, “Wait until I tell you what happened. A recent high school graduate came in looking for a job stacking shelves ... and he was wearing a suit and tie! He said his mother told him to dress up.”